


if you ever want to be in love

by FlYiNgPiGlEtS



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Anne ships it, Athos is disappointed in his son, Episode: s02e01 Keep Your Friends Close, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, calling Constance Bonacieux a coward??? not on my watch, d'Artagnan has Many Regrets, grovelling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:26:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23280103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FlYiNgPiGlEtS/pseuds/FlYiNgPiGlEtS
Summary: d'Artagnan says something he doesn't mean and sets out to make it right.
Relationships: d'Artagnan/Constance Bonacieux
Comments: 8
Kudos: 42





	if you ever want to be in love

d'Artagnan grovels. 

Strangely, it’s Athos’s idea. They are sitting in the Garrison courtyard, at the table beneath Captain Treville’s office, and d’Artagnan is trying not to brood—because upstairs General De Foix is dying, and Lucie has more important things to worry about than their spurious kiss, and their Captain is tensing for the hard strike of grief, a pain they are all familiar with. But he cannot unhear his own words, and he cannot remove the stain of Constance’s hurt on his conscience.

“You’re quiet,” Porthos comments, almost in passing, as he makes a face at their soup, gone cold while they were up in De Foix’s sickroom, listening to the tales of his and Treville’s heroics become increasingly convoluted and incoherent with fever.

d’Artagnan looks up from his own soup, which he would not have touched even if it was fresh from the stove. “Who’s quiet?”

But Porthos is obviously talking about him. Aramis is being obnoxiously loud, as if the silence would swallow him whole if it came near their table, and Porthos is rising to the occasion despite the tension between himself and Treville. Athos is always quiet, so none of them commented on it.

“What’s the matter?” Aramis asks, earnestly removing his hat. “Come, d’Artagnan, you can tell us.”

“Constance stopped by to inquire about General De Foix’s health,” d’Artagnan mumbles.

“Ah,” says Aramis, exchanging a knowing look with Porthos. Most likely, they have a bet on how soon Constance would stop by the Garrison now that she is free of her husband’s house, and Porthos has just lost an inordinate sum of livre.

d’Artagnan looks at some point over Athos’s shoulder, unable to meet their eyes as he admits, “I called her a coward.”

Aramis swiftly swats d’Artagnan’s arm with his hat (the gesture actually reminds him of Constance’s quick slaps, incensed and incredulous) and Porthos growls his name with disapproval, and Athos says what they were all surely thinking without words: he is the worst man in Paris, to let Constance believe he could think such a thing of her.

“Did you mean it?” Athos asks, in his calm drawl, although it is colder than usual.

“No,” d’Artagnan snaps, angry at himself but unable to stop it projecting outwards, enveloping everything he does in the way he knows Athos despairs of, “Of course I didn’t mean it.”

“Then why did you say it?” Porthos demands, pointing his unused spoon in d’Artagnan’s direction.

“We were arguing about Bonacieux, and I…” d’Artagnan sighs, thumbing the ache sat between his eyes. “I lost my temper.”

“d’Artagnan—”

“I know! I know what you’re going to say,” d’Artagnan hisses, pointing his finger at Athos across the table before he realises, again, that he is angry at the wrong person. He lets his hand drop to the table. “Head over heart. But one is a great deal louder than the other.”

“It takes both to keep a woman, my friend,” Aramis say, “I would know.”

“And that is not what I was going to say,” Athos interrupts, shooting Aramis a dark look, “I was going to suggest you grovel.”

Porthos raises a scarred eyebrow. “Grovel?”

Athos inclines his head. “For want of a better word.”

“No, sounds about right,” d’Artagnan mumbles into his sorry-looking soup.

Aramis pats him on the back. “We’ve all been there.”

“Have we?” Porthos asks with an exaggerated frown.

Athos stands, not abrupt exactly, since even his most urgent movements seem smooth and considered, but it is unexpected. Since Milady’s departure some months ago, he is less likely to seek his own company, or that of the bottle.

“Somewhere to be?” Aramis asks casually, although there is a spark of suspicion in his eyes.

“It’s been a long day,” is all Athos offers by way of explanation.

Aramis shrugs and Porthos nods his farewell. d’Artagnan stares into the depths of his soup, as if it could offer him the answer to the problem he has created with his own anger, which burns through reason and hurts the people he loves most.

“d’Artagnan,” Athos say quietly, although his voice carries despite the distance he has already put between himself and the table.

d’Artagnan looks up, hoping for absolution, expecting the opposite.

“Few other words could have done more harm,” Athos tells him, “Or been so lacking in truth.”

“I know,” d’Artagnan murmurs, but Athos has already retreated into the Garrison.

And so he sets out to right the greatest wrong of his romantic life with Athos’s advice tucked close to his heart, like a treasured letter, or perhaps a bullet buried too deep to remove.

* * *

It is this thought—of powder and ink, of the time he found Constance drawing the intricate mechanisms of his musket instead of the measurements of Bonacieux’s orders—that sets into motion the first part of d’Artagnan’s plan.

He is reluctant to call it a plan. He does not want to plot and trick his way back into her heart. He simply wants to restore the truth of his esteem for her. But he is not sure how to do this without a plan, since spontaneity has led to poor results in the past, including the mess of their confrontation in the courtyard.

To begin with, he tries to write a letter. She wishes for distance, and for time, and so he thinks a letter can give her both while conveying the magnitude of his regret. Alas, he hates every draft he puts to parchment, and each one ends up as kindling, incinerated so that no Musketeer will read its contents and tease him mercilessly.

He supposes he could ask Aramis for advice, but he is not entirely sure he should trust it. Porthos would help, he always did, but he’s a man of action rather than words. And then there is Athos, whose disappointment is keeping him awake at night. They train without talking, and d’Artagnan doesn’t know how to explain that his love for Constance is so _beyond_ anything he’s ever known that he cannot contain it in words alone, and does Athos have any guidance on such matters?

He scrunches up the latest draft and throws it into the small fireplace in his room. The housemaster will have his hide for burning parchment in the middle of summer. He’ll just have to pretend he is destroying top-secret correspondence on the upmost urgency. It’s not entirely untrue.

* * *

The next time he sees her, they are at the palace, delivering the news to the Queen that General De Foix has died in the night. Treville is escorting Lucie to stay with family nearby, and sent the four of them in his stead. The King is absent, apparently hunting with Rochefort.

d’Artagnan’s mind is stretched thin, pulled in a thousand directions at once. He is thinking of General De Foix, who he mourned twice, in very different ways. He is relived that the General did not die by his hand. He’d felt a swell of grief in the moment he’d lifted his pistol—for the person he was, the justice in his heart, which would surely have perished that day, too, if he’d have pulled the trigger. And this death still feels like a failing on his part. The General was a good man, who did not deserve to die, and it’s _unfair_ , the way his own father’s passing was so desperately not right, so out of balance with the world he thought he knew.

He is thinking also of Constance, who is standing just behind Anne, seeming sad but simultaneously determined not to look at d’Artagnan. He remembers the time he returned from Athos’s estate, so shaken by what had happened that he hadn’t even thought to wash his clothes or hair before returning to the Bonacieux house. He stunk of fire and ash, and he had no words to explain to Constance. She drew him a bath and washed all his clothes, even his smalls, and when he came downstairs at midnight like a child afraid of the dark, she hugged him quickly before shoving him into the kitchen and grumbling about her husband while making him tea.

A part of him feels like he did then: pushed sideways out of his life, into a new strand of existence where the details are minutely different and he has to adapt all alone. Yet he wasn’t alone, before. He misses her warmth. Some strange part of him misses that house, and the domesticity they’d slipped into while he lived under its roof.

He is trying to communicate this to her, trying to carry a silent conversation across the room, even though it is the precise opposite of the right time. Porthos is shooting him pointed looks, and Athos is deeply unimpressed, and Aramis seems oddly distracted but perhaps is waiting to scald him later.

He knows the pointed, wide-eyed look on Constance’s face when she finally gives in and returns his gaze. It’s an echo of all the times he’s asked her to do something stupid in the name of a grand plan. It’s a shadow of the warning on her face when he was not being subtle enough in front of her husband, with his hand on her knee beneath the table, or a smile that is too full of secrets exchanged as they pass one another in a doorway. He loves that look, in part because he knows it has proceeded some of their greatest moments together.

This look—whether it is his or Constance’s, he’ll never know—is apparently not lost on Her Majesty, who calls him back when the four Musketeers go to leave: “d’Artagnan, if you have a moment?”

Both Anne and d’Artagnan look to Athos for permission, and he gestures to say: _go ahead_. The three of them depart, and Anne smiles sweetly at Constance.

“Constance, would you mind telling Marguerite that I would like to see the Dauphin after I have taken supper in my rooms?” Anne asks.

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

Constance curtseys, and shoots d’Artagnan another look—this one is easy to translate: _behave_ —before she walks away, a little slower than usual as if to convey her disappointment in them both for clearly colluding behind her back.

“I hope Constance will forgive me the intrusion,” Anne says, with her quiet grace, “I am not usually so forward, but it pains me to see her hurt.”

d’Artagnan flinches, and he thinks he would take one of Athos’s harshest parries over Anne’s words, even though they are kind, even to him, when he does not deserve it. “I’m glad Your Majesty already considers Constance a friend.”

“I have had few friends,” Anne admits, still very quiet. She wrings her hands, then drops them, seeming to think the gesture unbecoming of a queen. Her smile is small and fleeting. “I like it very much.”

This makes d’Artagnan smile. He is not a fool. He knows the Queen is lonely, even though it seems almost treasonous to observe. That is part of the reason why he recommended Constance for the role.

“As Constance’s _friend_ ,” Anne continues, “I feel I should tell you that I am quite disappointed in your conduct, d’Artagnan.”

Her sweet but indignant chastising is almost as bad as Athos’s cold reprimand. He has abused the trust and respect of the gentlest soul in France, and it is not a good feeling.

“I am disappointed in myself, Your Majesty,” d’Artagnan tells her, “What I said was not only wrong, but blatantly untrue.”

“I agree.” But Anne has softened. “I have been told enough times that I am too quick to forgive, and the decision must be Constance’s. But I can see in your heart that you regret your words for the right reasons.”

d’Artagnan nods, hoping she sees how anxiously earnest he is.

“How will you remedy your error?” she asks.

“I am trying to write her a letter,” d’Artagnan replies—almost confesses—and then realises how woefully inadequate this seems.

Nonetheless, Anne is smiling, her eyes bright. “A love letter?”

d’Artagnan inclines his head slightly, a halfway gesture that conveys she isn’t wrong, but not entirely right either. “Of sorts.”

“How romantic.”

“I’ve burned every draft.”

“Oh.”

“Yes.”

“Well…” Anne hesitates, then rushes ahead: “Perhaps I could show her the letter of recommendation you wrote me? With your permission, of course. I know it is highly unorthodox, but then—isn’t this all?”

Of all the things d’Artagnan set out to do today, blushing furiously in the Queen’s quarters is not one of them. But if anything he has written in his life counts as a love letter, it is the one of recommendation he sent to Anne after a conversation just before her lying-in period about filling the empty position in her household. In the letter, he sings Constance’s praises without exaggeration but not exactly without flourish, and he sent it before he could dwell on the truths he had flayed and let bleed onto the page.

He knows the letter reveals just how helplessly in love with Constance he is, and he isn’t sure he can survive the knowledge that she’s read it.

But then, is the point of grovelling not to show humility? More likely he will be humiliated, but he deserves that, really.

“Will she doubt my intentions?” d’Artagnan manages to give voice to his insecurities, through it is strange to air them here. “I recommended her without expectation of reward. She deserves this position.”

“I know this,” Anne says, “And I will make sure she does, too.”

Still, d’Artagnan hesitates.

“It will make her smile,” Anne ventures, in that way of hers when she knows she might be saying too much, venturing too far, and yet is gently enjoying the freedom of pushing boundaries. “I like it when she smiles.”

“Me too, Your Majesty.” d’Artagnan remembers bottles shattering, and that victory grin, the brightest thing he has ever lain eyes upon. “Me too.”

* * *

The Queen, still recovering from the birth of the Dauphin, takes short walks around the Palace gardens, and although it is unconventional to an extent, the Musketeers escort her when they are not needed elsewhere. More often than not, d’Artagnan and Athos assume this duty, the latter finding some other task to occupy their counterparts, Porthos and Aramis. There is a lull in activity, although it won’t last long, not with the Dauphin’s grand christening approaching the following month.

d’Artagnan has attended these walks three times in the week since De Foix’s death, and Constance always stays close to the Queen and refuses to look at him. He doesn’t blame her. Anne is exhausted, and in need of company now that the King is spending so much of his time with Rochefort. But after a two-day break, wherein all four of the Inseparables are conscripted by Treville to investigate a local public house accused of running a fighting ring (the rumours were comically untrue), the Queen expressly asks Athos to walk by her side, and gives d’Artagnan and Constance a pointed smile.

They trail behind Anne and Athos, who walk in amicable silence. Their silence, however, is far from friendly. It’s awkward, and a little cold, and d’Artagnan wants to step months backwards into the past, when they walked through the market talking about anything and everything as Constance carried out errands.

“Well,” Constance says eventually, taking a deep breath and letting it out in a sigh that it heavy with frustration.

“Well,” d’Artagnan echoes.

“I read your letter.”

“What letter?” d’Artagnan asks innocently, but his flinch at her admission has already given him away.

“The letter of recommendation you wrote to the Queen on my behalf,” Constance still points out, annoyed by his epic foolery. 

“Oh, that letter.”

“Her Majesty holds you in high regard,” Constance says out of the corner of her mouth, “I can’t imagine why.”

d’Artagnan puts his hand over his heart. “You wound me.”

“Good.”

“I only had your happiness in mind,” d’Artagnan blurts, after another stretch of silence. “The Queen mentioned in passing that she was looking for a new lady-in-waiting, and I was out of formation and telling her about you before Athos could even shoot me that look.”

“I know the look you mean.”

d’Artagnan shudders, glad Athos is a good few paces ahead.

“And of course you’d speak without thinking of the consequences,” Constance continues, but there’s a smile growing at the edges of her lips, fond and exasperated in equal measure.

“It’s a dangerous habit.”

“I had hoped you’d grow out of it.” Constance sighs again. “You said, in your letter—you said I had the courage of a Musketeer, and a kindness that compromises for no obstacle or hardship.”

She blushes, as if saying these words aloud is embarrassing. As if they should stay on paper, unsaid, so as not to open the wound of his admiration. d’Artagnan remembers these words, despite how hurriedly he sent the letter; she is quoting him exactly. 

“I meant it, Constance,” he says, “Every word.”

Constance stops and looks up at him. “How can I believe that? Nothing has changed since the letter, except that I told you one more time that I wouldn’t leave my husband, and yet you said what you did. Unless you did all of this to get me away from Bonacieux so you could make your move—”

“I would never—”

“—then how do I know you haven’t always suspected me of being a coward?” she demands. “How do I know you weren’t lying in that letter to get me exactly where you wanted me?”

“Constance.” He reaches for her, but she steps away, her eyes burning into him. He tips his head back and closes his eyes for a moment, breathing through his nose against the anger boiling inside of him.

“Constance, _listen to me_ ,” he continues, looking at her again, even though the fury on her face hurts. “I meant everything I said in that letter, without agenda. I just wanted you to be _happy_. And if I could not be the one to make you happy, I thought that at least I could find you somewhere you could make friends and smile and—and _live_ , with the freedom you deserve.”

“d’Artagnan,” she says quietly, looking down.

“Constance,” he echoes, his voice soft but desperate, imploring her to believe him.

“What you said, it _hurt._ And I hear it again every time I see you.”

“I understand.”

“I don’t think you do.”

d’Artagnan feels himself pale. “You want me to stop seeing you?”

“How would that work? You’re a _Musketeer_. You seem to be everywhere at once.”

“Then what? What can I do?”

This seems to reignite her anger. She pushes past him, but not before she tells d’Artagnan with some force: “Figure that out for yourself.”

“Constance,” he calls after her, but she’s still walking away. “Constance, I’m sorry.”

Constance and Athos swap places without exchanging words. Athos walks for a while beside d’Artagnan, his silence screaming his disapproval.

“Did you grovel?” Athos asks.

“I tried.”

Athos looks at him from beneath the brim of his hat. “Evidently, not hard enough.”

d’Artagnan throws his arms up in frustration. “What do I have to do: go down on my knees and beg for her forgiveness?”

“If that’s what it takes,” Athos replies, and walks away while d’Artagnan is still trying to formulate a protest.

* * *

Instead of a coherent, formulaic letter, d’Artagnan’s attempts become something else, a sort of diary of his life in her absence. When they both lived under Bonacieux’s roof, he would return from the Garrison and tell her about his day, what he had learned, who he had studied with, and she would return in kind while bemoaning the lack of adventure in her own routine. In absence of that intimacy, d’Artagnan writes odd notes here and there, things he would have told Constance if they were on talking terms.

After a lazy Sunday patrolling the streets of Paris for trouble that never materialises: _I saw a cat today who looked scarily like Athos—grumpy and judgemental, even while trapped up a tree, which incidentally has happened to the Musketeer as well as his feline counterpart. The cat eventually extracted itself without my help and stalked away as if it was offended by my attempt at assistance. Uncanny. I thought of the time your neighbour’s cat had kittens in your laundry basket and we had to look after them until she returned from her family estate in Reims._

Or a Tuesday training session with Aramis: _he told me I have the attention span of one of Madame Laurent’s dogs when there is cheese on the table. I said if he is such an expert when it comes to animals, why does his horse take up amateur dressage every time we are on parade duty? The matter was settled with a shooting match, which I, of course, lost. I thought of all the times you beat me at that game we used to call Sitting Ducks and wondered how Aramis would cope with a sharpshooter like you in the Garrison._

And the time he goes drinking with Porthos at the same establishment Captain Treville occasionally attends: _needless to say, the Captain can still scold a person within an inch of their life while three bottles in. I am now in charge of laundering all of the Musketeers’ stockings for the rest of the week. I thought of the time we got drunk and burned your husband’s stockings—can you remember why? I confess I cannot, other than that it seemed inordinately funny at the time. I would very much like to burn the Garrison’s stockings, but I think the smell would poison Paris, and my commission would be permanently revoked._

* * *

There is a tea party in the King’s library, which is hardly the sort of event to attract assassins, but Treville is nothing if not cautious. The Inseparables stand guard while Louis sings the praises of his new friend, Rochefort, to a room of green-eyed courtiers.

It is a casual event, and d’Artagnan wanders away from the main group of gossipers to look at the library’s tall shelves, containing more books than he has ever seen in one place at a time. All of the books at the Garrison are about military strategy. But he sees books here in languages he does not recognise, and on a spectrum of subjects, from philosophy to celestial observations to romantic poetry. And buried among these, a collection of treaties on the subject of women’s liberation.

He takes one from the shelf and opens the cover, finding an inscription within: _from the library of Comtesse Ninon de Larroque._

“Ninon’s library was possessed by the crown after her trial,” says the Queen, appearing quietly from his elbow, as if from nowhere.

d’Artagnan snaps the book closed, feeling like a child caught with his hand in the honey jar by his mother. This happened quite often. He was always complaining that his porridge was not sweet enough.

“I have never seen texts like it,” Anne continues, “I believe some of them are originals, and perhaps only copies, produced by Ninon’s friends and allies.”

“It is a shame they cannot be shared more widely,” d’Artagnan murmurs, feeling a sense of deference to these books and where they have travelled and who they might have helped.

“Please, take any book that interests you. I doubt the King will notice their absence,” Anne tells him, looking sadly at Louis while he laughs and puts on an exaggerated performance of his most recent hunt. 

“Thank you, Your Majesty.”

And so begins d’Artagnan’s second education. He has always thought of himself as the kind of person who would never judge another for the circumstances of their birth. When he has been too quick to judgement in the past—he thinks flinchingly of storming the Garrison and challenging three of its best soldiers, and of the incident on Porthos’s birthday with the melon and the false accusation—he will set out to right his wrongs.

But the books from Ninon’s library shift his worldview, page by page, until he cannot walk down the street and not notice the way a man is speaking to his daughter, or which wares are sold at the stall of a woman’s next to a man’s, and how one is always busier than the other, no matter the day.

He thinks of what Constance says about what would happen to her if he died, and he realises he has been living in blissful unawareness, believing that scandals would wash over him, and knowing he always has the protection of his brothers. Constance’s position in society is far more tenuous than his.

He asked her to put everything on the line. He tried to pull her into his orbit of ignorance and privilege. He hadn’t taken a moment to think that he might believe them equals, but the world they lived in did not see them as such.

He writes another letter: _I am a woman in a world built for men. That is what you said to me, and I said something unforgiveable in return. But a coward does not tear down expectations brick by brick. A coward does not look at the world and see it not as it already is, but as it could be. You might be a woman in a world built for men, but my God, Constance, are you going to make them sorry for it._

* * *

The four of them are walking through the palace, and Aramis and Porthos are trying to decide which weapon is most underappreciated, the axe or the crossbow. Porthos is biased against the axe because he was once impaled by one. Aramis has a grudge against the crossbow because it throws his reputation as a sharpshooter into disrepute. It’s a heated argument, which Athos withdrew from early on account of not caring, and d’Artagnan cannot keep up with since his mind is spinning from the book he’d been reading the night before.

And then he sees her, carrying a bowl of strawberries. “Constance!”

Aramis and Porthos exchange a look, and then continue their argument with even more gusto. Athos follows them down the hallway, giving him and Constance a moment of privacy.

d’Artagnan reaches for a strawberry, mainly just to provoke her, which works. She immediately slaps his hand away.

“These are for the Queen,” Constance says, “Strawberries are her favourite.”

“And yours,” d’Artagnan replies with a cheeky grin, shaking his hand as if her slap hurt him terribly.

Constance rolls her eyes. “I have no ulterior motive.”

“Of course not.”

“What do you want?”

“Did I ever tell you that every Musketeer writes a will upon his entry into the regiment, to be kept by the Captain in case he is killed in the line of duty?”

She starts to walk away. “No, you didn’t tell me. And I don’t know why you’re telling me now.”

He catches her arm, but then thinks better of it. She stops anyway, looking at him impatiently, as if she does not think he has a single valid point to make.

“I have no wife, no family. I have very few possessions. When Treville asked me to write the will, I could not think of who or what to include.”

Constance’s face softens. She lowers the strawberries, as if she can no longer justify their importance, and looks almost like she wants to reach for him.

“What I am trying to say is: you have a great deal more to lose than I do,” d’Artagnan continues, “And I am sorry for not seeing that before. You were right when you said I didn’t even think about what I was asking of you.”

Constance swallows, looks away. “I suppose I should say thank you.”

“That’s not necessary.”

They stand in silence, neither of them ready to move on.

“What did you write?” Constance murmurs after a while. “In your will?”

“I left my sword to Athos, my pistols to Aramis, and the ceremonial deck of cards I won in Calais to Porthos. Originally, I switched the order about—Aramis was going to get the sword, Athos the cards, and Porthos the pistols—as a joke from beyond the grave, but Treville wouldn’t allow it.”

Constance shakes her head, but she’s nearly laughing. “I don’t know how he puts up with you lot.”

“I left something for you, too,” d’Artagnan whispers, a confession.

Constance looks up at him, and they are close, closer than they have stood in months, and her eyes are bright with wonder. “Oh?”

“Do you remember my father’s compass?”

“d’Artagnan, you didn’t.”

“It’s not worth much.”

“It’s _everything_ ,” she breathes.

“It used to remind me only of the night I lost him,” d’Artagnan tells her, “But now, it reminds me of that night we tried to figure out which direction we would have to look to see the same stars when I was going undercover in Navarre.”

Constance laughs ruefully. “I think we were doing it all wrong.”

“Definitely,” d’Artagnan agrees, laughing for a moment with her before sobering again, “I hope—if you did lose me—that the compass would not be a reminder that I was gone, but that I had lived.”

“d’Artagnan, when I said I would lose everything if you died,” Constance murmurs, “I meant more than wealth and position. I meant…”

He smiles. “I know.”

They are staring at each other, and d’Artagnan thinks he really should say something before it becomes awkward and inappropriate, although it’s a little too late for that.

“One day, our circumstances might be different. And when—” he stops himself with a flinch “— _if_ that happens, I want you to know that I understand there is more to a relationship than love and adventure. I will do my best to give you security and protection. You will always have your freedom, and my respect.”

“As long as you don’t compromise on the love and adventure,” Constance says with a self-conscious smile.

“Never,” he vows.

“Well,” Constance sighs, “The Queen will be wondering where I am.”

d’Artagnan steps out of her way. “Enjoy your strawberries.”

“They’re not for me,” she protests as she walks away.

“If you say so.”

She shots him an insincere glare before continuing on her way, and d’Artagnan is still floating on the way she’d smiled at him when he joins the others.

“You look happy,” Porthos observes.

“Has your grovelling paid off?” Aramis asks.

“Not yet,” d’Artagnan replies, because he doesn’t think he’s out of the woods.

d’Artagnan looks at Athos, who stares back impassively.

“You could always go down on your knees and beg,” Athos drawls.

Aramis and Porthos exchange a look, and d’Artagnan is _sure_ they are about to make a series of dirty jokes about this comment, and there is nothing they can do to stop it.

“What makes you think I haven’t?” d’Artagnan asks, before the joking begins and he can’t get a word in edgeways.

“Your breeches are immaculate,” Athos replies, like it’s a devastating insult, even though he is usually complaining of the opposite.

And then the filthy jokes begin, and a sensible word is not shared between them for quite some time.

* * *

“All I’m saying is, are you sure Constance ain’t allergic to flowers?”

d’Artagnan temporarily pauses his search to glare at Porthos. “For the last time, _yes_.”

Porthos shrugs. “It’s just you didn’t sound so sure before.”

“Because you _keep asking_ ,” d’Artagnan seethes, “Which is making me doubt my own sanity.”

“Let the boy pick his flowers in peace,” Aramis interjects, “Not all of us are unlucky enough to court four separate widows with hayfever.”

Porthos crosses his arms, making himself seem bigger. “You promised never to mention that.”

“It seemed topical,” Aramis replies lightly.

d’Artagnan stands and presents his bouquet. “What do you think?”

“d’Artagnan, I’m touched,” Aramis declares, removing his hat and placing it over his heart.

“They’re not for you,” d’Artagnan snaps.

Aramis pouts.

“I’ll pick you some flowers later,” Porthos tells him with a roll of his eyes, and then returns his attention to d’Artagnan. “Constance will love them. As long as she doesn’t have hayfever.”

“Porthos!”

Porthos and Aramis laugh, and d’Artagnan glares.

“We should get back to the party,” Aramis says, “Before Athos tires of covering for us. I doubt Treville will accept picking flowers as a satisfactory excuse for leaving our posts.”

“What if we picked some flowers for him, too?” Porthos asks.

Aramis settles his hat back onto his head and grins. “Well, that would be a different matter.”

They return to the garden party, where Queen Anne is hosting some old friends who have arrived at the palace for the Dauphin’s christening. They are mostly noble ladies who moved away from Paris to marry, and d’Artagnan doubts the Queen is entirely comfortable in their company, even though she is holding herself with impenetrable poise.

It’s been a week since their conversation about his soldier’s will, and Constance has starting smiling at d’Artagnan when they pass each other at the palace, and meeting his eyes every now and again when they are at opposite ends of the same room. He singles her out among the crowd, the flowers hidden behind his back, and gestures with his head towards one of the empty verandas.

Constance makes her way over, and d’Artagnan meets her beneath the shade of the veranda.

“Before you tell me to stay out of the sun—” she begins, irate, probably remembering the time he lost his mind with worry when she came home from the market with a sunburnt nose.

He goes to his knees and whips out the flowers.

“Constance, I humbly beg your forgiveness,” d’Artagnan says, “I have been an insufferable fool, and I have said things I did not mean and never once believed to be true. I have no excuse. I only wish you to know how deeply sorry I am.”

“What are you doing?” Constance asks, looking around in embarrassment.

“Grovelling,” he replies.

“You’re bleeding.”

d’Artagnan looks at his hands, and realises he has pricked this thumb on a thorn while creating the makeshift bouquet. “So I am.”

She grabs him by the elbow and drags him to his feet. “Stand up.”

“These are for you,” he says of the bouquet.

“I gathered as much,” she snaps, but she takes the bouquet from him, and after a moment, she smiles. “Thank you.”

He sucks his bleeding thumb. “You don’t have hayfever, do you?”

“No.”

“Thank God.”

“d’Artagnan, while I appreciate your grovelling—”

“It was Athos’s idea.”

“—you don’t—it was _Athos_ ’s idea?”

“Yes.”

Constance looks confused.

“I was surprised, too,” d’Artagnan admits, “But he was very disappointed in me for what I said, which is worse than him being angry. Although come to think of it, he was also angry.”

“I didn’t know Athos cared.”

“You’re his friend.”

Constance smiles in pleasant surprise. “Well, I suppose I should thank him. For the flowers.”

“I picked them,” d’Artagnan points out.

“Aren’t you meant to be grovelling?”

“Do you want me to go back on my knees?”

“Appealing as that sounds,” Constance tells him, “I would prefer it if you didn’t make another scene. We’ve already drawn enough attention.”

Constance looks pointedly over his shoulder, and d’Artagnan realises they have an audience of ladies, giggling and gossiping about his display. It is Anne’s smile—soft and real—that stands out to him.

“I’ll have to explain to them that I’m married.” Constance sighs. “And not to you.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologising.” She smiles again. “And thank you. For the flowers. They’re beautiful.”

“Not nearly as beautiful as you,” d’Artagnan murmurs.

She swats him with the flowers, but her cheeks are reddening. “Stop it.”

“Go back to the party,” he tells her.

She returns to the gaggle of tittering ladies, taking her seat beside the Queen, although she looks up and smiles at him again as she’s showing Anne the flowers.

d’Artagnan is grinning when he returns to his post. He looks at Athos and gestures at his breeches, dirty with mud from beneath the veranda, which was soft and wet on account of being in the shade.

“Happy now?” d’Artagnan goads.

“A soldier should take pride in his uniform,” Athos quips, “That is hard to do when his uniform is stained at the knees as if he is a child who has been playing in the mud.”

“That’s a bit harsh,” Porthos protests.

d’Artagnan throws up his hands. “I can’t win.”

Athos softens, gifting d’Artagnan one of his rare smiles. “Has Madame Bonacieux forgiven your misjudgement?”

“Nearly.”

“Would you accept nearly,” Athos says, “As the outcome of a battle, or the placement of a bullet?”

“No,” d’Artagnan grumbles.

Athos says no more, but he’s made his point.

* * *

d’Artagnan is walking through the market alone, the sun setting behind him, the stalls packing up for the day, and his feet sore from his trek across the city to deliver a missive on Captain Treville’s behalf. He wants to be back at the Garrison, putting his feet up and enjoying his evening meal. But he stops when he sees it: a red ribbon, which reminds him of Constance’s hair when they first met, the way the sun shone through it and set every strand alight.

He buys it from the vendor, who is annoyed at having been delayed in closing for the day, and adds a few livres for the inconvenience. He no longer has enough money to fix the hole in his boot, but he’s sure it can wait until he gets his next wage.

Although it is too bold, too dangerous a thought, he imagines the ribbon around her neck, attached to the pendant he knows belonged to Constance’s mother. She wears it all the time, and so she would wear the ribbon always, too.

Instead, he ties the ribbon around the collection of notes he wrote her. He cannot bring himself to burn these; they are too precious. He carries them with him, in his doublet, and vows to give them to her the next time they see one another.

His courage falters. He sees her thrice and, each time, the letters remain in his pocket, hidden away. They talk about the weather, or the Queen and the Dauphin. The christening often comes up in conversation. It’s not meaningless, but it’s not what he wants to say, either.

The fourth time, he doesn’t give himself the option of cowardice. He also does not think it through. Constance asks him how his day has been with pleasant interest, and, instead of replying, he presents the bundle of letters to her without context.

“What are these?” Constance demands, turning the red ribbon-wrapped package over in her hands. 

“A gift,” d’Artagnan replies. Then shakes his head. “No, not a gift.”

“Not a gift?”

“They’re nonsense.”

“Well, thank you,” Constance drawls, “For the not gift of nonsense.”

“I wrote you letters,” d’Artagnan blurts.

“Oh.”

“I missed talking to you.”

Constance trails the ribbon through her fingers, like water, like a snake.

“I think of you all the time,” he continues.

“d’Artagnan.”

“You don’t have to say anything. You don’t have to read them,” d’Artagnan adds, “I just thought they would be safer in your hands than anywhere near the Garrison. Aramis would host some sort of poetry reading at morning muster if he found them.”

“You wrote poems, too?”

d’Artagnan grimaces. “No. I’m over-selling myself. My apologies.”

She laughs, incredulous. She doesn’t actually seem to find the situation funny.

“d’Artagnan, we can’t keep doing this,” Constance says.

“I know.”

“I should—I’m needed elsewhere.”

“Of course.” He tries to smile. “Enjoy your day.”

Constance leaves. d’Artagnan turns to the nearest pillar of the walkway where they’d bumped into one another, and slams his head against the marble in regret.

* * *

The Dauphin’s christening in two days away. Louis has summoned them on a hunt—all four of them, and no Rochefort this time—and d’Artagnan is running late because he was up all night wallowing in the utter humiliation of giving Constance his lovesick ramblings as if they were some sort of precious gift. He’s still eating the roll he stole from the breakfast table as he jogs through the palace grounds, and he doesn’t notice Constance leaning against the wall, half in the shade, until he’s stuffed what’s left of the loaf into his mouth like an inelegant child.

“d’Artagnan,” she calls.

He holds up a finger, gesturing at his mouth with the other hand. She understands, since he was often in the same greedy rush in the mornings when he was staying at the Bonacieux house. It is then that he notices the red ribbon tied around the bottom of the braid tucked over her shoulder, and he nearly chokes.

“I read your letters,” Constance says, when he’s finished.

d’Artagnan doesn’t know what to say. Perhaps for the first time in his life, he’s sensible enough to say nothing.

“I missed talking to you, too,” Constance confesses.

It’s as if the sun is brighter and the whole summer still stretches ahead of them, although the red-hued shadow of autumn is approaching. She means everything to him. He is determined to spend the rest of his life proving it.

“Constance,” d’Artagnan says, “I’m sorry.”

“I know. And I accept your apology.”

He stands in the shade with her, not wanting to disturb the moment, although he knows he will soon be keeping the King—and Athos—waiting.

“We were friends first,” Constance murmurs, “Maybe we can be again. In time.”

He nods, slowly, trying not to show her the sharp edges of his broken heart. “In time.”

d’Artagnan smiles, and Constance returns it.

**Author's Note:**

> title from the James Bay song of the same name, "If You Ever Want To Be In Love".
> 
> things i like:  
> \- the idea of d'artagnan and anne being friends since they are both sinnamon rolls  
> \- athos basically being a grumpy cat  
> \- porthos picking aramis (and also treville) flowers
> 
> things i do not like:  
> \- d'artagnan calling constance a coward and it never being discussed on the show ever again
> 
> we see constance and d'artagnan smiling at each other at the christening, and speaking like friends in subsequent episodes, but i don't think she would let the "coward" comment go without a fight. and honestly, how dare d'artagnan? i hope this fills that gap. i'm pretending it's still 2014 and i've just become obsessed with the musketeers. i sadly never joined the fandom at the time but here i am with a bucket load of constagnan content for anyone who's still into it. please leave a comment or kudos if you enjoyed, or just want to scream about the Musketeers together!!!


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